


Keep Going

by KaRaEa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, canon divergent from s9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaRaEa/pseuds/KaRaEa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters get Adam back from Hell, damaged but alive and with no memory of the torment he went through. With their habit of avoidance, Kevin is left to deal with a shellshocked Adam. Which isn't too bad, all in all</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Going

When the Winchesters first bring Adam back tot he bunker, he's pale, cold, unresponsive and sporadically wracked with shivering fits and panic attacks. He has no conscious memory of the cage; if he did it would destroy him even more effectively than it did Sam, he was in there far longer; but a part of him must still know what he went through. It's written in the way his hands clench and unclench in bursts every few minutes. The way he doesn't even blink at loud noises or sudden movement, but screams whenever he's left alone in a room, or whenever the lights go from on to off or off to on.

The Winchesters don't have a clue how to deal with this. In their comparitively extensive experience of the after effects of hell, they have never seen this. They have never had to deal with the long term effects of it in anyone but themselves. So they steer clear. They make sure he has everything he needs. They turn the heating up so that his shivering subsides and they don't turn off the lights at night. But beyond that they're lost.

They go on hunts and try to forget the guilt of having left him in there so long.

Kevin, from his place safe in the bunker, is the one who deals with the night terrors.

The first time it happens, he wakes up from his position hunched over the table in the library to the sounds of sobbing and short, ragged screams. He gets up to find Adam crouched in the hallway, eyes wide open and streaming tears, back against the wall. Still screaming.

He tries to wake him up. Calls his name, shouts it. Hesitantly places a hand on Adam's shoulder, then shakes him when it gets no reaction. He stays there for what seems like hours just trying to get him to wake up. Shushing him, calling to him, singing to him. Shaking him, holding him, rocking him.

Nothing works.

At some point, Adam drifts back into true sleep, head on Kevin's arm, a dead weight in the middle of the hallway.

The next morning, he's just the same as before. As if it had never happened.

After that, Kevin does his research. Learns not to try and wake him up, but just to be there. Learns that Adam will have no memory of any of it once he wakes. Learns to keep pillows and blankets on hand and to try and steer Adam to a comfortable surface while he's still in the middle of his terror. Kevin's no weakling, but he's way too tired himself to carry Adam back to bed every night.

During the day, Kevin does his work wherever Adam settles, learning early about his fear of being left alone. Kevin tries to remember to talk to him regularly, even though he rarely gets any kind of response. He likes to think it helps.

And in a weird way, it's kind of nice. Having someone there listening to him. The bunker can get kind of lonely when the Winchesters aren't around.

The first time Adam speaks to him, Kevin doesn't answer for a good long while, too busy staring and trying to figure out if he'd imagined it. But Adam's eyes are on him and eventually he does answer.

It was something dull, maybe a mention of some sports event that Kevin really isn't interested in. But it's something.

When the Winchesters get back, Kevin tells them about Adam, excited by the progress. Their answers are short, uncomfortable, like they'd rather not talk about it. So Kevin goes back to his work and telling Adam about the time in second grade where he swore at the teacher in French and got sent home early. He still thinks that was unfair, and he takes Adam's constant gaze on him as an agreement.

"How many languages do you speak?" Adam asks one day. He's been getting better with the talking thing. Really fast actually, from everything Kevin's read he shouldn't be recovering this fast, but he's not about to complain. He just pins it on Adam having no actual memory of the trauma.

“Um, five if you count Enochian. Which, I guess I don't actually speak so much as-” Kevin cuts himself off. “Nevermind. Do you speak any other languages?”

Adam shakes his head then hesitates. “A little French, but it's just high school stuff and I forgot most of it.”

“You wanna learn any?”

Adam shrugs.

“'Cause I can help. I mean, I'm no linguistics expert, but I used to help people study back in high school and I was pretty good at it.” Kevin offers.

Adam smiles faintly and Kevin counts it as a win.

“Maybe we can get you brushed up on your French again sometime.” Kevin says, and leaves it at that for now.

  
  


When they're choosing something to watch one day, Adam tells him he's a secret Buffy fanatic and Kevin laughs. He has nothing against a little slayer action, but he can't imagine why Adam would want to watch something like that after everything. But he queues up some episodes and the Winchesters find them singing along to Rest in Peace when they walk in from a three week hunt.

Adam had been barely talking when they'd left, so to say they were shocked would be an understatement. Even Dean was pleasantly surprised enough to sit down and watch the rest of Once More With Feeling with them, cold beers being passed around in silent celebration and Kevin grinning as Adam serenades them all.

Things only get more normal from there. The night terrors are still there, but after awhile they slow to once a week, then once a fortnight. Adam still hates being alone, but he's aware enough not to go into screaming fits or panic attacks when Kevin goes to take a shower. They play video games and watch TV, and Adam reveals a not-so-secret love of singing, which he does incessantly to the point where Kevin threatens to go do his research at the public library.

A few weeks in, they do start polishing up Adam's French, which is just as appalling as he claims, and Kevin finds himself in hysterics at the weird accent Adam seemingly unconsciously puts on every time he tries to speak the language.

Eventually they all relax and stop worrying that this is just a fluke, that the damage will surface again and worse for the period of respite. Adam doesn't remember Hell, and his body and subconscious are finally catching on.

 


End file.
